


Marks come before, marks come after

by Prosodi



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prosodi/pseuds/Prosodi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history of Lupin's shoulder holster - or as much of it as Jigen knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marks come before, marks come after

The straps of Lupin’s shoulder holster wear through his shirt to leave dark stripes on his skin. Those lines make the perfect place for Jigen to rest his little fingers: the weight a subtle reminder to Lupin that he sit still while Jigen dresses the shallow graze of a bullet high on his shoulder, uncomfortably close to his neck. Jigen sits on the edge of the collapsing couch, rolls his cigarette between his teeth and makes a low noise at the way Lupin shifts under his hands. Lupin is between his knees, his back curving up and the knots of his spine visible.

 

"That stings!" he says, wiggling his shoulders while he good-naturedly reassembles the Walther. The pieces lay balanced on his thigh. Lupin cleans his gun and Jigen cleans the shallow track of a bullet - steadies him with his thumbs and growls a puff of smoke. The wound is oddly asymmetrical, throwing off the balance between those two dark stripes pressed into the curve of Lupin's skin: reddest at the top of his shoulders and fading, crisscrossed over his spine.

 

\--

 

And one time when Lupin falls, the concrete gargoyle of some European bank crumbling under his feet, it's what keeps him from sliding off the gutters and plummeting forty stories to the pavement and a ring of police cruisers below. Because Jigen, who catches him first by the wrist - feels the bones crack at the jerk of Lupin's weight -, knows the holster is there and digs his fingers into Lupin's shoulder, through his jacket and shirt to find it, and hauls him up.

Afterwards Lupin can't get out of it, can't turn his hand the right way and his shoulders ache from the wrench of his own weight (not that he says it, just looks pathetic and laughs it off). So Jigen undoes the buckles he can't reach, hollow shift of metal over leather. Moves his thumbs under the straps that are soft, worn supple and smooth. He pauses when he realizes how frayed the stitching is here - a few tired loops, ready to come undone and undermine everything.

"This is broken," he says. His fingers are between the leather and Lupin's shirt, pressing. He can feel the rise and fall of Lupin's chest.

Lupin makes a noise, twists to look - "Eh?" - grimaces from the pain in his shoulder. "I'll have it fixed it later."

"Later? There's ten million Euro under the bed! Buy a new one."

Lupin's lifts his hand - the one that isn't broken - and scuffs his fingers over the soft leather to feel where the stitching is loose, and at the worn places where the color has worn into a pale cream. His thumb against the side of Jigen's hand, then his knuckles.

"This one fits though." He turns sideways and shrugs out of the holster with a slight wince, leaving it in Jigen's hands. The leather feels less substantial without Lupin in it.

 

\--

 

This is what it comes down to: Lupin's skin is a canvas of nicks and scrapes, of old scars and ghosts of wounds. Jigen knows a lot of them, but not all - a geometry both known and unknowable. For example: there are pale calluses on his wrists from being tied and handcuffed, and there is a thin white line on Lupin's belly that Jigen stitched closed himself. Meanwhile, Jigen has seen Lupin nearly or all the way naked enough times to recognize the dark scars peppered high on his thigh, but what made them is a mystery. He guesses a shotgun, but doesn't know the intimate details.

Lupin's skin is a pattern of marks come before they met and marks come after. He doesn't explain his scars and Jigen doesn't ask, so the only marks which predate the partnership that Jigen knows the full meaning of are the dark rough streaks on Lupin's naked shoulders left by the holster - like someone rubbed dirt into the skin.

And most days, it's enough to have that cipher marked on Lupin's body. They are a vantage to aim from to which all other landmarks relate. There is a certain easiness in the fact that under his too big jackets and the dress shirts with slightly short cuffs, despite the changing disguises, the fading of old scars and the cutting in of new ones, that there is something with which to anchor Lupin by: marks made by caution instead of violence. They are one of a kind.

After this long, Jigen has learned to treasure rarity.

There is only one time when it isn't enough. It doesn't happen when they're cornered, or when Jigen thinks Lupin is dead - shot to pieces or drowned, or both. That’s almost expected. Jigen finds himself desensitized enough - or faithful enough - that it isn't when the odds are long that those marks matter.

Instead he finds himself wondering about them and the straps that made them when they're driving, the car humming up Northern Italian switchbacks and his cigarette smoke blown away long before he can smell it. Or when the days gets slow and the level in the scotch bottle runs accordingly low. Or in the moments between when one job is finished the next one begins - and those aren't exactly the times when a shoulder holster matters.

Except here: stuffed into a little room over a Parisian bakery, the Eiffel tower just visible over the crooked line of roofs. Lupin sits in the window with one foot outside and a book in his lap. They are on a cold trail and Lupin doesn't mind the research - a trait Jigen never expected, but is nonetheless true.

It's quiet, though cars sometimes hum by on the road below and every now and then Jigen can hear the sharp sound of the baker's laugh coming up. He likes to tell inoffensively bad jokes - Lupin repeats a few for Jigen's benefit (as he speaks only snatches of French). This stasis won't last long. They know for a fact that there are two different police forces on their trail and at least one mob boss after their blood - they've stolen a key, but have yet to find the safe. The interim is peaceful and brief, though probably longer than Lupin prefers. Jigen uses the time to clean the revolver; he feels like he rarely gets the opportunity, and it's too quiet to enjoy a nap.

When he finishes, he resorts to leaning the chair back on two legs and smoking one cigarette after another. Lupin is uncharacteristically quiet, scuffing through one book after another. There isn't a television or a radio in the room. It's very still. Jigen blows smoke rings and the legs of the chair creak minutely under his weight.

"Ah!" Lupin springs in from the window ledge. He slams the open book down on the table. There is a current of energy in the arm he throws across Jigen's shoulders, and he smells like crisp aftershave. His other hand sweeps excitedly over a few blocks of text; he translates: "--Beauclerc was thought to have apprenticed under Duplessis shortly before his death in 1802." He closes the book. The movement shifts Lupin’s shoulder against his, and Jigen can feel the line of the holster which Lupin has forgotten or neglected to take off when he shed his jacket earlier. It presses against his back.

"Which confirms it. The unfinished painting of Marie Antoinette, just waiting to be recovered. Ah, can you imagine that beautiful face?" As if they were rescuing it from a dumpster rather than planning to lift it from one of Paris' most secure vaults. --Though Jigen finds it difficult to complain. There is an electric charge in the angle of Lupin's fingers and just before he begins to unwind his arm, Jigen raises his hand.

He intends to steady the cigarette between his lips, but changes his mind halfway: means to scuff his knuckles against Lupin's chest and grunt, "Don't talk like it's as easy as that." But Jigen fumbles and his fingertips catch accidentally on the edge of the leather strap across Lupin's shoulder. He hesitates. His knuckles against the soft fabric of Lupin's dark shirt. It is quiet and purposefully still, the moment before they move into some decisive action. There is a sense of momentum building, a vibrating tension in the curve of Lupin's body alongside his. Jigen slides his fingers under the holster strap.

It is beginning to wear especially thin there and won't survive another fall like the one seven months ago. The bones that broke in Lupin's wrist then have knit back together; he is hardly worse for the wear, left hand as dexterous as ever. So Jigen notices when his fingers shift on the cover of the book. It is a tiny, soft adjustment not unlike pulling the trigger of a gun.

Jigen starts to say something, he doesn't know what, but then the angle of Lupin's arm thrown over his shoulders shifts. Very near his cheek, Lupin asks, "Ready?"

Jigen makes a low noise. He slides his fingers further under the strap of the shoulder holster until it presses the back of his hand firmly into the sturdiness of Lupin's chest. Lupin's thumb against his neck, and Jigen can feel his own pulse against the touch.

"Beauclerc, you said?" Lupin's fingers on the vibration of the words leaving his throat.

"That's right." Lupin's breath, hot on his cheek. There is no hum of traffic through the open window, no hoarse laughter from the bakery downstairs.

Jigen eases his hand down the strap until it bends back where he can't reach. Lupin makes a low noise; Jigen can feel the whisper of his mouth near his ear. The sound seems louder than it actually is.

"Time to go." He slides his hand out from between Lupin's chest and the supple leather. Jigen feels the fingers on his throat shift and the angle of Lupin's shoulders change. They break apart. They gather their things. They go.

 

\--

 

A few months later, somewhere between Hong Kong and Turin - not an inconsiderable distance - Jigen means to steady himself off Lupin's shoulder and his fingers instead find the soft leather. It's a simple tug, not heavy, but suddenly the strap is broken.

They are drunk, climbing the fire escape back to the studio they have under cash lease. It's one of the less smart things they've done, and Lupin is laughing and making a joke every time he misplaces his foot. At two in the morning, the sound is very loud.

The strap breaks and Jigen swears sharply, catching himself on the fire escape's railing with his other hand to keep from falling. It's a near thing. Lupin, fumbling, tries to steady him. "You broke it!" he says, is laughing. He has a hand against the rail, wrist bumping against the line of Jigen's arm. Lupin laughs, close, and then sighs: closer.

When Jigen kisses him, he doesn't really feel guilty even though Lupin balks. His mouth tastes like alcohol and acrid cigarette smoke, and he smells faintly of perfume. Lupin had been running a petite blonde around like they were at a dance hall instead of a vaguely seedy basement bar. There's a certain tension in the lay of Lupin's shoulders and the kiss is brief, not much more than a brush thinks Jigen, before Lupin sways back. They're both a little unsteady. Lupin goes to step back and the broken leather strap which Jigen has forgotten to let go catches him.

A shudder of tension runs up the broken piece; it's impossible not to imagine how it must pull unevenly, the straps that remain digging into Lupin's other shoulder. Everything's unbalanced. Lupin isn't laughing anymore. There are a few seconds or minutes or days where Jigen doesn't know what to expect. The fire escape feels both intimate and strangely exposed, the distance between them narrow though if he looked, Jigen could see the pavement three stories below through the steel grating. He slowly realizes that the press on his side is Lupin's wrist, his hand still on the railing. There's a shift, a squeak of metal and the slight sounds of the leather of the broken shoulder holster settling around the flex of Lupin's shoulders as his hand slides up under Jigen's jacket and settles across his ribs. The weight mirrors that of the Smith and Wesson on his other side; neither is by definition passive.

Jigen winds the strap of the broken holster in his hand. It's a too deft movement to attempt while drunk, but it nonetheless brings Lupin back to him. The overlapping leather pinches the hair on the back of his hand. Lupin kisses him again, teeth scraping his lower lip. His mouth is otherwise soft, which is somehow unsurprising. And it shouldn't be strange that Lupin's hands are quick, but somehow it's still startling for Jigen to find his tie undone and the top three buttons of his shirt open. Jigen takes some level of comfort from the fact that it's easy to be distracted by Lupin's mouth, that he isn't the first person too focused on what Lupin is doing with it to pay attention to his hands.

His knuckles against the soft fabric of Lupin's dark shirt, bound there by the holster strap - the angle of his arm between them is demanding yet distancing, works in opposition to his hand at Lupin's narrow waist, thumb tucked into his belt. There's an urge to push him off, to chase him up the last two ladders of the fire escape and into the flat - which is warm and less exposed, where there isn't a square rail cutting a line into the small of his back. At the same time, Jigen knows it won't last the time it would take. That upstairs would be stifling, less illicit. That the springs in either the narrow bed's mattress or the couch's pull out would dig just as badly as the rail.

So after a beat Jigen uses the tension of the broken strap, soft supple leather taut over the angle of Lupin's shoulder, to reel him in the rest of the way against him. Lupin, taller, unsettles Jigen's hat, but before he thinks to worry about it falling, Lupin has righted it. He is still kissing him and Jigen begins to pull at his belt. Can taste scotch on his breath and there is a window there, right there. It's still early enough that someone might be awake and see them: Jigen only half obscured by lines of Lupin's body. Jigen is shorter where he in taller, slightly broader in the hip where Lupin is narrow. The pads of Lupin's fingers are thick with calluses, rough against the skin of Jigen's hip (the shirt unbuttoned now, half pulled free from the waist of his slacks).

There is a remarkable elasticity to the way Lupin touches him and the way his shoulders curve, the way his leg slides between Jigen's, his thigh pressing there. Jigen holds him by that broken strap wound in one hand, undoes his belt with near mathematical precision with the other. He slides his hand down into the space - the buckle clinks and the sound of the zipper coming open under Jigen’s wrist is obscene in the furtive darkness between their bodies - pauses there, palm soft but pressing on Lupin’s abdomen. Here a moment: they are not quite kissing and from the darkness under his hat brim it is easy for Jigen to see the pronounced lines of Lupin’s neck and shoulder by the far away street light casting a warm yellow glow there. Lupin’s fingers shift gently on his hip, though the grind of his thigh against Jigen’s crotch is less so. Jigen isn’t seventeen any more and it should take more than that to get him hard; it doesn’t. He slides his hand down and when Jigen touches him, Lupin makes a noise like he’s been shot.

It jumpstarts something in him. At once, Lupin tries to step closer into space that isn’t there. His hand on the fire escape railing fumbles against where it meets the small of Jigen’s back -- like he’s mapping out the angles and intersecting lines in the moments between the shift of Jigen’s fingers. And under his other hand, still tangled in the broken strap of the shoulder holster, Jigen can feel how Lupin shudders under his touch, how his chest hitches and his body bows. Lupin’s breath, alcohol sour, catches and he groans when Jigen runs his thumb over the head of his cock - slick bead of pre-come. He says, “Oh,” and then “Ha, shit,” except it isn’t really a laugh; the hand Lupin has on Jigen’s bare hip slides down over the front of his pants. Jigen tenses, tugs on the broken piece of leather. It pulls the rest of the holster with it; Jigen can feel how it torques Lupin’s far shoulder away, how the pressure of Lupin’s thigh between his legs intensifies in kind. He swears then, dull and hollow. In response Lupin quirks the angle of his wrist so that the heel of his palm scuffs against him through Jigen’s slacks.

The grating underfoot creaks with the shift of their weight - Lupin pressing against him, Jigen’s fingers there working low sounds out of him which Lupin presses into his mouth and under the curve of Jigen’s lower lip. Jigen thinks he can feel the rail behind him swaying out, but it may just be the shift of Lupin’s leg and the press of his hand, or how Lupin’s other hand has scudded up under his coat and shirt tails and settled against the small of his back like it belongs in the hollow there. The noise Lupin makes when he comes is sharp and startlingly clear in the darkness. He half muffles it against Jigen’s jaw - can feel where Lupin’s soft mouth scrapes on his beard. Jigen’s fingers flex against the twisted leather strap; the small hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Lupin’s come is warm on his fingers. If he listens, Jigen thinks he can hear a woman speaking in the apartment nearest.

A man makes some muffled reply, too low to be understand. Jigen cleans his fingers on Lupin’s striped boxers. Lupin breathes heavily near his cheek; all the tension has gone out of him - his hands have settled easily and the cant of his shoulders slopes gently away from Jigen’s knuckles against his chest. If they weren’t standing, he might be asleep. Jigen considers punching him in the head, is moving to do so when the hand at his back moves. He feels the shift of Lupin’s hand in his jacket pocket, though it isn’t until Lupin sways slightly backward that Jigen realizes he’s lifted a cigarette and his lighter.

Jigen makes a low surly noise, though Lupin’s thigh is still pressed there between his legs and one of his hands is still settled over the front of his slacks, tracing the hard line of his dick. Lupin strikes the lighter - twice, the flint needs replacing - and sucks in a lungful of smoke. His palm, pressed flat, shifts encouragingly, which Jigen appreciates. Lupin slides the lighter back into his jacket (the weight of it settles in neat balance to the collection of bullets weighing down Jigen’s other pocket) and tips his head back.

“You’re cigarettes are always so strong,” Lupin complains. He blows a ring of smoke and it hardly rises before it loses all form and dissipates. The press of his palm doesn’t - instead Lupin shifts his hand and thigh in tandem.

Jigen’s fingers fumble at his hip and he pulls, tugs, makes a sharp incoherent noise of complaint. Begins to say, “Lupin, you--” with all the intention to cut, but then Lupin has shifted. He puts the cigarette between Jigen’s lips and patiently works his belt open.

“Take care of that,” Lupin says, then, “And give me some slack, would you?” He grins sharply. Unzips Jigen’s fly. Jigen unwinds the broken strap from around his hand but doesn’t let go, and Lupin-- Lupin steadies himself with a hand on the rail and then gets down on his knees.

Jigen settles. The cigarette is strong, but not overpoweringly so - Lupin has no reason to complain. The rail cuts faintly against his lower back; the familiar weight of his gun rests near there too. Here the night is warm enough that having his shirt open isn’t uncomfortable, and the light from the nearby window is just enough to see by. Inside the nearest apartment, the man and women are still speaking in muffled voices - Jigen can‘t tell by the cadence if it‘s an argument or not. Overhead the fire escape converges in angles and lines of grating which the moon, a narrow waning sliver, manages to shine through. He can’t bring himself to look down. He can feel how Lupin moves less by the heat of his mouth (which is very hot, and his tongue is --) and more by how the slack of the broken holster piece is taken in and let go. The leather pulls and sighs in Jigen’s grip with every rhythmic shift.


End file.
